Contemporary luggage designs often include wheels and a handle so that a user can more easily roll heavy luggage through an airport or other location with greater ease. Suitcase handles may comprise one or more lengths of rigid tubing that extend upwards from the top of the suitcase and include a handle or grip portion at its top for the user to grip and pull. In this manner, suitcases may be tipped at an angle so that the weight of the suitcase is carried by the wheels, while the upper portion of the suitcase is held at an angle and pulled by the user. Many luggage designers attempt to conceal the handle for such luggage within the body of the luggage during periods of non-use in order to maintain the overall appearance of the luggage and to preserve a regular shape for the luggage so that it can be more easily stacked by users or baggage handlers. Furthermore, such extendable or “telescopic” luggage handles may also include one or more locking mechanisms so that the telescopic handle remains in an inserted position during periods of non-use and may also be held in an extended position during periods of use.
Luggage designers employ several techniques for the design of telescopic luggage handles and locking mechanisms. One common design uses a series of concentric metal or hard plastic tubes, so that the interior tubes may be inserted or withdrawn from the exterior tubes in a telescopic fashion. A typical suitcase handle may include two parallel series of concentric tubes connected at the top by a horizontal handle or gripping portion. The base of both series of concentric tubes may be fastened to the wheel assembly or an internal support structure for the suitcase so that the series of concentric tubes will not be separated from the suitcase when fully extended.
Telescopic suitcase handles may also include locking mechanisms to both maintain the telescopic suitcase handle in the inserted position within the suitcase as well as maintain the telescopic suitcase handle in an extended position outside of the suitcase. Some telescopic suitcase handles provide a button on the top of the handle or gripping portion which controls, through a cable, one or more spring-loaded, retractable bullets within the series of concentric tubes comprising the telescopic handle. When pressed, the button retracts the one or more spring-loaded bullets, from corresponding openings within the external tube within the series of concentric tubes, allowing the user to then reposition the internal tube. Once the internal tube is repositioned, the one or more spring-loaded bullets may be released by releasing the button on the handle or gripping portion, allowing the one or more spring-loaded bullets to slide into a new opening within the external tube, corresponding to the new position of the telescopic handle.
One shortcoming of the above-described telescopic handle design is that it requires internal hardware, such as a cable, to be disposed within and along the length of the series of concentric tubes so that the button at the top of the handle or gripping portion may control the spring-loaded bullet as the internal tubes are repositioned within the external tubes. This configuration precludes designers from using narrow, thin, solid, or substantially open telescopic handle designs that do not have an internal space for accommodating the necessary hardware for the locking mechanism. Examples of this disclosure relate to a telescopic suitcase handle design that seeks to solve this limitation of the prior art by providing a new locking mechanism that is controlled without the need for a button on the handle or gripping portion of the telescopic handle and without the need for a cable or similar hardware located on the interior of an internal tube.